By Alisa Kivirian

“Look at yourself in the mirror. See who you truly are and repeat: I am enough. I can do it. Then hide it into your sock and whenever you feel like you are not believing in yourself enough, take it out and look into it again.” That’s what he said. He, one of our trainers and a successful music therapist Jean Baptiste.

Starting with this session, you are obliged to carry around the weight of this trust mirror in your sock no matter where you go. But does it actually work? Is it even needed? You are already cool enough to be selected for a volunteering project in another country, isn’t that it? Well, let’s see.

To start off, as a volunteer working on a project with kids with a mentor who is a professional psychologist you should clearly understand that any activity you take part in is focused only on the best for your own sake. You would never do something which is unnecessary. So, following the topics and paying attention no matter if the theme is relevant to you in particular is highly important.

Moving to a second aspect related to this question, I would say that even though this mirror is all ‘fake’, imaginary, the weight of it is quite palpable. Trusting in yourself is not as easy as it may seem. Especially when you are responsible for inspiring and helping out kids, small-sized human beings who are affected by tiniest details at certain age.

You are being challenged all the time. Am I suitable enough for this job? Can I do it? Am I creative enough? Will the kids like me? Am I able to successfully perform in a team? What if my teammates secretly hate me? These and other questions arise throughout the whole stay in your new home country where you get to volunteer.

But how do you overcome it? To deal with the related challenges and possible issues, the European Commission is ready to help you out: every volunteer has a mentor to whom the participant is able to communicate in order to express all the needs and discuss all the problems. None of the content of the mentoring sessions will be exposed to your colleagues and/or your coordinator. Some mentors (like mine, for example) has a degree in psychology so he can clearly understand how I feel and give the most suitable advice. Moreover, you can always talk to your colleagues, maybe some of them struggle with the same issues. And, of course, your coordinator! Communication is mostly the key of solving any problems. Plus, all around people will support you no matter what you are going through.

Last but not least, self-reflection is a great way to overcome your doubts and inconveniences. Besides listening to other opinions and occasionally overthinking the things you are being told, you should analyse your words and actions yourself to see if the comments are actually relevant. Maybe you are not even experiencing any issues. As long as you know you have enough of self-trust, you should never question if it’s actually true because you know yourself better than the others. It is always important to remember that you don’t have to prove anything to anyone just to show that you are actually NOT lacking belief in yourself. Yet is also important to not pretend. After all, you can’t make people believe in themselves as long as you don’t believe in yourself.

Personal case? Well, I never lacked self-confidence. I always think of myself as quite a professional human being who performs any job at her best. And I always thought I’d be great with kids because of my expressive personality and some level of acting abilities. But after we’ve met Jean Baptiste and I’ve heard the phrase “You can’t teach others how to trust yourself if you are not able to trust in yourself first”, I’ve started questioning if I actually am good enough for this job. I felt a bit down and most likely overthought it a little bit but, luckily, I came to the conclusion that I still am able to fit in and can perform my job successfully, even if this statement is being questioned all the time. Believe in yourself is the number one priority and you don’t need anyone else to believe in you or think that you believe in yourself enough to actually strive to your goals and be good at what you’re doing.